Reserve Services at the University Libraries

As the Fall 2006 semester gets underway, the University Libraries invite faculty to take advantage of the reserve services offered by the campus libraries. These services allow faculty to make supplemental material available to students without the additional bookstore expense or the time and planning involved in supplying photocopies to their classes.

Electronic Reserves: Faculty are encouraged to utilize the libraries’ electronic reserve service for their personal documents (syllabi, notes, etc.), web links, and journal articles.  Electronic reserve documents are accessible to students 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on or off campus, and since the items are viewed and printed rather than checked out, they are always available and cannot be lost or damaged.  Course reserve pages can be created for each of the classes a faculty member is teaching, and links to electronic materials will be created there.  Materials are then uploaded into the ereserve system and are accessible to students through the Libraries’ website.  Electronic reserve materials can be provided to the library in any of the following formats: clean single sided photocopies, as an e-mail attachment, a URL (web link), or on floppy disk or CD. Before submitting photocopies, faculty should check the Libraries’ Full Text eJournals listing to see whether course materials are available electronically for speedier processing and superior file quality.  Beginning with the Spring 2007 semester, all photocopies of articles, exams, book chapters, etc. will be available only on E-Reserve.

Faculty now have the opportunity to manage their own e-reserve course pages, and the Libraries encourage all faculty to consider using this functionality.  With minimal instruction, documents can be uploaded or faxed directly into e-Reserve Course Pages anytime and from anywhere. Faculty interested in taking advantage of this opportunity and receiving one-on-one instruction can contact Prof. Charles Livermore at ext. 5330 or livermop@stjohns.edu in our Reference Department.  Electronic reserve demos are available on the Libraries website.  Faculty who wish to manage their own account must complete an E-Reserve Account Request Form

Print Item: Library-owned books may be placed on reserve for students’ use for one semester. Faculty can request that photocopied materials be made available to their students at the Reserve desks for the Fall 2006 semester. In addition, for books that the Libraries do not own, faculty can loan their own copy to the library,  where they are processed and listed as reserves materials in the library catalog.  Print reserves are located on the second floor of the Queens library and at the circulation desk on the main level of the Staten Island library. 

The wait time for processing reserve (whether print or electronic) material can be up to two weeks during peak times in the semester, though processing time is generally within a few days.  All materials placed on reserve in the libraries must be accompanied by a completed and signed Reserve Request Form, which can be found on the Libraries’ website or at the Reserve desks.  The Reserve Departments. will process items in the order they are listed on the Reserve Request Form, so professors should list items in order of importance.

The University Libraries’ policy for access to copyrighted materials placed on Electronic Reserve is derived from the Fair Use provisions of the United States Copyright Act of 1976, Section 107. For additional copyright information and guidelines, go to http://www.stjohns.edu/academics/libraries/general/copyright.

Contact Dorothy McGovern, Queens Campus, ext. 6069; Virginia Salvione, S.I. Campus, ext. 4359; or email reserves@stjohns.edu for additional assistance.